Slam! A's big hit at bat time

Brian Murphy, OF THE EXAMINER STAFF

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, August 25, 1999

OAKLAND - These good-to-the-last-homer A's games are starting to look like an old Batman episode.

Bam! says catcher A.J. Hinch as he leads off the A's scoring with a home run. Smash! says designated hitter John Jaha as he pounds a game-tying grand slam. Crunch! says third baseman Scott Spiezio with a lead-taking solo blast. Biff! says second baseman Randy Velarde with a tater later on.

The roundhouses kept coming on Tuesday night, in maybe the most rollicking ballgame at the Coliseum this year, an 11-10 comeback win over mighty Cleveland in the A's testament to fortitude, perseverance, and - oh, yeah - good, old-fashioned long ball.

Crunch! said Velarde again with another bases-empty tater. And, finally, Smack! said Jaha again, ending the barrage of haymakers with the winning jack, only to watch the Indians stagger, circle and feel their knees go out from under them.

Waking up with the ice pack on their collective head and the red meat over their collective eyes, the Indians must have felt pummeled by a gaggle of Louisville Sluggers.

A season-high six times the A's left the yard on Tuesday night. That makes 187 for the year, second-best in the bigs and closing fast on the Kingdome-less Seattle Mariners (197).

Get used to it, A's fans. If this team is to continue its wild little run into its current state - tied for the American League wild-card spot with Boston and just 5-1/4 games behind Texas in the AL West - it's going to be by swatting balls up, up and away. Or back, back, back. Heck, choose your home run description. Even David Letterman once tried to come up with a home run call, and nominated:

"Send a fruit basket to the wharf, it's bon voyage time!"

The A's will settle for calling them home runs, thank you, and notching big-time wins over big-time teams like Cleveland in their inimitable Oakland stylings.

"Lineups are made certain ways," Jaha said after he pumped his 29th and 30th homers, the slam and a game-winning eighth inning job. "Some are made fast to score runs on base hits. Ours is made for the homer. We live and die with it now."

"And we're living big time right now," a happy Howe said. "Living high on the hog. With our ability to hit them, no lead is insurmountable. We can get back in a hurry. The whole team feels that way."

The architect of it all just smiles. General manager Billy Beane is an aficionado of the homer, enjoying it as if it were a fine wine and he the most exclusive of oenephiles. He cites his influences - ex-A's GM Sandy Alderson and former Baltimore manager Earl (You Hit a Three-Run Homer, We Will Win) Weaver.

"It's our equalizer," Beane said. "I hear people say: The A's have trouble creating runs. Well, there's no better way to create them, or to get back into a game, than the home run . . . We don't have the resources to get a Ken Griffey Jr., who can do it all for us. We have to choose things, we have to choose between speed and power.

"And I like power."

Power equals wins, or at least it has of late. The A's scorching August record of 16-7 has been a love letter to the home run. In their 16 wins, the A's have hit 35 bombs, or more than two per game. In their seven losses, the A's have just six home runs, less than one per game.

Or why do you think it was such a big deal when the A's scraped past Toronto, 4-3, on a Velarde bleeder to right field last Sunday? Seeing the A's play littleball was as rare as seeing Jaha try to drag bunt for a hit.

The A's are going to go down swinging this year, and showed as much to the AL's top run-producing team in what has to qualify as - and how many times are we going to use this phrase this summer? - one of the marquee wins of the season against a team that had beaten Oakland nine of 10 times entering Tuesday night.

"We won a slugfest with Cleveland," Hinch said. "And we plan on being around in the playoffs, maybe against Cleveland . . . so there was a lot of meaning to this game." &lt;